Alain Sepeda <alain.sep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem of cold fusion was incompetence of the particle and plasma > physicist in calorimetry. > > These people were in fact not totally incompetent, just not enough to > understanf Fleischmann&pon and trust calorimetry, but too much to be modest > and not to imagine artifacts from their armchair. > I agree. I think there was plenty of blame to go around: it was not only the fault of the science journalists or the physicists. However, I think a larger share of the blame goes to science journalists and especially the editors of Nature magazine. In an academic dispute you will find scientists lining up on both sides, including incompetent scientists to pontificate about things outside their own expertise. A journal such as Nature or Scientific American should make an effort to present both sides of the dispute. That did not happen with cold fusion. As Mike Melich says, to this day, the US is letting the editors of Nature decide our energy policy. - Jed
